“Good,” Shrek said. “But don’t lock your elbow like that. You’re overextending. Go again.”
I thrust again, adjusting my technique so that my elbow stayed slightly bent at the apex of the thrust.
“Exactly like that. Then just twist the blade and recover. You don’t want the enemy grabbing hold of you right when you think you’ve won. Remember, most creatures are going to take a lot more than a single stab to put them down – especially if they’re higher level than you. If you stab and keep your hand there like you’re posing, you’re just inviting them to grab you by the wrist and shake you out like a dusty rug.”
“Yeah, well, that’s alright. I’m more of a stick and move kind of guy, anyway. Hey, is that the cygnet from the dungeon?” I asked, nodding in the direction of his right hand.
“It is.”
“Aw, man. That’s a bummer. I thought for sure they’d accept that as your replacement for the proving hunt. I guess I still owe you one, huh?”
He snorted.
“You saved my life. I’d say that makes us even. They did accept the ring as my token, though. The orcish custom is that if you kill a man, whatever was his becomes yours. His land, his belongings, his wife.”
Not gonna lie, that last part almost gave me a panic attack. But then I remembered who Jasmine was and pitied anyone who killed me to try to stake a claim on her. I doubted very much that strategy would pay off for whoever was stupid enough to try it.
“Well then, I take it all back. Congratulations. What’s that mean for your immediate availability?”
“Not much,” he grunted. “There’s plenty to do around here, but not much back in Slagfall that would pull me away. Why, what do you have in mind?”
“Would you be up for another dungeon? I need to run through at least a level 50 to grab the core and –”
Shrek stopped me with a glare that told me just what he thought of that idea.
“Look, it’s not my own idea. Urz suggested it, actually.”
“Urz? That’s weird. He’s usually pretty sensible.”
“Look, how about this. We’ll go one more round of practice. If I can knock you on your ass, you have to come with me. Deal?”
He grinned and got into a fighting stance. I followed suit, pulling my handgun in my free hand. If we were going to do this for real, I was going to show him what I could actually do. Every time we’d sparred in the past, it was more or less just for him to show me what he knew about knife fighting. Now, I’d give him a taste of good old fashioned American gun play. So, I shot him. On purpose, this time. The bullet ricocheted off his chest plate but left a decent sized dent in it.
“So, it’s going to be like that?” he asked with a grin after stumbling backward a half step.
“Oh. It’s LIKE that,” I said, returning his grin.
“Good,” he said, his grin widening. Then, the bastard kicked dirt in my eye.
“You dirty mother-“
He cut me off with a punch to the ribs that sent me rolling across the practice square. I used the momentum and rolled back up to my feet then pushed off and sprinted toward him, firing a couple rounds from my handgun as I ran. Neither shot landed, but they served their purpose – he had to duck to avoid being shot in the face, which gave me time to close the gap and set me up nicely for an upward swing of my dagger. Sadly, Shrek saw it coming a mile away and dodged the swing easily. He brought his own blade down, aiming for my collar bone. I pushed the barrel of my gun into his wrist and pulled the trigger, blasting his arm away and off target. He swung wide and I leapt upward, bringing my knee up and catching him square in the chin.
Shrek stumbled backward a few steps and rubbed at his jaw. He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“You’ve got quicker,” he said. “Sneakier, too.”
“Excuse me. You’re the one kicking sand in people’s face like a villain in an old Playboy comic.”
I knew he didn’t know what that meant. So, when he went to say as much, I lunged instead of listening. He must have anticipated the move to catch him off guard, though, because he caught my forearm and flung me about 20 feet through the air behind him. The fact that he didn’t rip my arm completely out of socket was a small miracle. I landed with a loud thump, flat on my back. The air rushed out of my lungs. Shrek came to stand over me and gloat.
“Well? Had enough?” he asked.
“Gotcha…right…where I…want ya,” I squeezed out between gasps.
“Sure.”
He reached down to help me up and I shot him right between the eyes at point blank range. His head flung back and his helmet flew off to parts unknown. Shrek stumbled a few steps, trying to catch his balance, but soon fell onto his backside. Now I was the one standing over him. I knew my gun wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the thick iron helmet he was wearing. But I also knew that at such a close range, it would ring his bell both figuratively and literally.
“That was dirty,” he complained as I pulled him to his feet.
“I know. Isn’t it great?
“It kind of is, actually, yeah. You’ve come a long way since the day I stole your gun.”
“Couldn’t have made it this far if you hadn’t done that, you know. So…you’re coming, right? To the dungeon, I mean.”
He stood there, half concussed for a few minutes. I gave him time to let his Constitution repair the tiny amount of brain damage I may or may not have inflicted upon him. As we stood there, Shrek wavering with dizziness and me feeling nine different types of smug about it, Juniper slipped into existence beside me.
“So, is he coming?” she asked.
“I just asked the same thing. Assuming he’s a man of his word, then he kind of has to come.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We had a bet,” I shrugged. “If I could knock him down, he’d come with.”
“You let Rocky knock you down?” she scoffed. “You’re getting soft.”
“Hey!” Shrek and I echoed one another.
“He cheated,” Shrek complained.
“I did no such thing. You let your guard down. That’s a you problem.”
“Men,” Juniper grumbled.
“I know, right?” Scorch said, scurrying out of Juniper’s dress pocket onto the sandy training grounds.
“You’re supposed to be home nursing a caffeine hangover,” I accused.
“I feel much better now,” she said, dismissively.
After a bit more back and forth, Juniper decided that we should have a threeway spar. She would take on Shrek and I, and whoever could land a blow on her first would be the winner. If I won, Shrek would come along. If Shrek won, he could decide for himself whether he was a chicken or an orc. That last bit was all the nudge Shrek needed and he immediately demanded the 2 on 1 rematch.
Juniper stood completely still and serene as though she were simply preparing for a nice afternoon of picking daisies in the fields. I tried the same quickdraw trick I’d used on Shrek, but the bullet passed right through her.
“Hey! Going intangible isn’t fair. How are we supposed to hit you at all?”
“What was it you said a moment ago? That’s a you problem?” she smiled. Shrek attempted to take advantage of the distraction and swung his axe at her in an overhand arc. She easily side-stepped the attack and hit Shrek with an ice blast to the chest. I tried to bum rush her as she was casting the spell, but she simply took a quick step backward and I ended up tackling air. The girl was the female Eidolon Barry Sanders, all of a sudden. When had she gotten so fast?
I scrambled to my feet and then dropped right back down again with wide eyes as a massive and sharp ice blast shot toward me. It flew by, just grazing the back of my duster. After it had passed, I rolled sideways and popped up into a squat position, ready to hurl myself out of harm’s way if need be. Need not be, however. Shrek had recovered from Juniper’s ice attack and was hurling everything he could get his hands on at her. He picked up whatever was near him and not bolted to the ground – everything from small rocks to picnic tables. He chucked it all at her, one after the other. Juniper, for her part, was unfazed. She dodged with little to no effort, and when she couldn’t dodge, she went incorporeal for an instant and the projectile would just pass right through her.
“You know, that intangibility is really overpowered. How are we supposed to knock someone down if we can’t even touch you?”
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she said. “I can only do it for a second or two at a time if I don’t want to disappear completely.”
“Good to know,” I said, firing two bullets at her in short succession. She phased and the bullets passed through harmlessly, but as soon as she started to become physical again, she had to dodge a follow up attack from Shrek. He’d thrown a trash can at her, this time. She side stepped the trash can but couldn’t dodge my kick this time…mostly because she hadn’t seen me coming. I had used Fade to slip her notice and rushed in at the same time as Shrek had launched his little garbage assault. I swept her legs and she came crashing down to the sandy floor. I stood over her and Shrek joined me. We high-fived while Juniper scowled at us.
“You weren’t supposed to work together, you cheaters.”
Suddenly, a large ball of fire started slowly descending upon all three of us.
“Scorch! Knock it off! Stop!” we all yelled as we scrambled away from the stoat’s deadly attack.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I demanded.
“What?” she asked, sounding disappointed as she put out her fireball. “You guys were all showing off. I wanted to play too.”
I sighed and Juniper went over to pick Scorch up and console the little brat. I checked to make sure my eyebrows and hair were still intact. Thankfully, I hadn’t lost anything this time. Shrek, being at least a head taller than me, had been singed a bit. He looked like a man who was going to need some aloe in the very near future. I looked him over and jerked my jaw in his direction.
“So? You in or what? I did win twice, you know. Even if we were doing best two out of three, I still win.”
“First of all…the first one doesn’t count because you cheated. The second one you wouldn’t have won either, if not for me. I’m not counting either of those as wins.” He paused. “But yes, I’ll come along. If nothing else, you’ve proven you won’t be a detriment in a fight, so I won’t have to try to fight AND keep you alive at the same time anymore. Probably.”
The four of us went our separate ways after that. Juniper took Scorch back to HQ, Shrek wandered off to do whatever it is a guy like that does in his spare time. Probably murder. Who knows, really? But me? There was only one place I wanted to go in that moment, and it just so happened to also be the one place I needed to go next. With my weapons stashed away in my inventory, I dusted myself off and tried to make myself as presentable as possible. That’s a tough feat on a normal day, let alone when I’d been rolling around in the dirt all morning and sweating my balls off. I hoped Jasmine would forgive the mess as I started walking in the direction of her villa. After all, what was a little dirt between lovers?